Shadow9612

11 hours ago, Jeremiah1212 said:

The way that process is described is not how most do it. I'm not sure I recall that method even being an option. You select a room charge, not OBC, as the payment source. You load your account with the desired amount and that posts to your account like any other onboard charge. Just like if you purchase a drink or specialty dinner. Your OBC is applied toward the room charge until it's spent then you would have a balance due at the end of the cruise if you deplete the OBC. 

This is how it worked for me on Silhouette in January.  No 5% transaction fee.

5 minutes ago, FamilyAtSea.travel said:

Interesting - for some reason I thought you had to have a Retreat sea pass to even to to their deck on those ship

I believe the retreat sundeck (on those ships that have one) is accessible only to retreat guests ...

40 minutes ago, FamilyAtSea.travel said:

Also, I confirmed I was wrong about smoking in the table games section... This is definitely NOT allowed.

 

The only smoking section in the casino is a small room near the Sports Bar with ~20 slots. 

Thank you for this information....  I can't really handle smoke, and I like visiting the roulette table on a cruise.  Celebrity has been my go-to for cruising, but I would consider trying elsewhere knowing the casino table area is no smoking.

On 3/27/2024 at 8:15 PM, dreamer321 said:

This video by Captain Kate might interest you.Captain Kate -Panama Canal

This is great!

3 minutes ago, CDNPolar said:

Again, our bank issuing the card says there is no challenge in having multiple cards linked to the same Aeroplan account.  I have called into the credit card as well and they claim to be good with what we are doing.

Hi, I don't think there is a problem having multiple cards linked to the same Aeroplan account.... So yes, people can gain Aeroplan points by spending on multiple affiliated credit cards.  

I thought you were originally referring to the "welcome bonuses" given (eg, 10,000 or 20,000 Aeroplan points) for new credit card sign ups.  That is where people might need to be careful.  

1 hour ago, CDNPolar said:

 

According to our bank no, that is not the case.  All they care about is that we spend the required amount of the card to get the points.

 

I will look into this however because our bank has been wrong before.

 

If you can direct us to where this policy is, it would be appreciated.

There was a travel blog summary article I saw (prince of travel) - am I allowed to post that link here ?

You can also read details on Aeroplan website.  Section 10 deals with new card bonuses:

Aeroplan Terms and Conditions

On 3/18/2024 at 7:03 AM, CDNPolar said:

We now have 4 TD Aeroplan cards all with bonus points in the first year and will be replacing two of these in June to get the latest annual bonus points awards

I believe Aeroplan has changed their policy and now limits the number of times people can receive bonus points for new Aeroplan cards....

Really enjoying your review (content and style).  I found out about this from one of your posts on the Celebrity board.  

I sail mostly Celebrity but have been considering trying elsewhere due to the skyrocketing costs of staterooms in Celebrity retreat.

So your details about MSC YC are every much appreciated.

Like you, I don't like smoke in the casino so this is a concern for me - I wish MSC had non smoking tables (ie roulette since I prefer the table game rather than electronic).

Just curious if you've left the YC to "explore the ship" and if so, is exploring easily done?  I don't really have a gauge as to the size of the MSC ships.  I'm used to being able to explore almost everywhere on Celebrity S class ships in a short period of time.

Again, really enjoying this - thanks for all the time and details!

2 hours ago, miched said:

Pushing 60 years

Amazing.  Congratulations 🎉.  Even if you've stopped counting, so to speak, I'm impressed.  💖. Happy Next  Anniversary 🙂

2 hours ago, RichYak said:

1. Bar seating. This is how you meet people or chat with the bartender about different cocktails to try. Huge miss on Celebrity. Retreat lounges are so antisocial. On Summit, there are two seats that face a wall. What are they thinking?

On Silhouette, in the retreat lounge, I thought there was bar seating (sort of a 'U' shaped bar)....

@RichYak very much enjoying and appreciating your comparison.  Thank you very much!

4 hours ago, OrtonPark said:

It’s not a “milestone” anniversary- just our 14th. 

Happy Anniversary!

Imho, 14 years is still impressive in today's world 😁. 

All the best ...

45 minutes ago, Arizona Wildcat said:

There will be an Easter sale followed by Spring Sale, May Day Sale, Cinco de Mayo Sale, Graduation Sale, Beginning of Summer Sale . . . .   

See a price you like?  Book it.  Can get reduced till final payment.  We book group space with a TA so refundable deposit.

PS, if the sales above don't sound great then how about Mid Summer Sale, 4th of July, August Sale, My Birthday Sale (21st of August) or ?????

Prices are a function of supply and demand.  Really simple.  

Love this.  Happy Early Birthday 🎈

2 minutes ago, arealcheapskate said:

Quality of service. 40mbps is possible but not consistently and reliably. It's better to deliver 6mbps to everyone, all the time (all things being equal).

Thank you 🙂

9 hours ago, NutsAboutGolf said:

When starlink was first deployed on X, you could hit 40mbps but they throttled it down. 

Why do they do so? If 40mbps is possible, why limit?

9 hours ago, DaKahuna said:

Being able to watch the safety video's and then go to your muster station at your leisure is one of the best things about todays safety drill on Celebrity. 

Agreed. 

23 minutes ago, RichYak said:

I’ve been escorted on board when in upper suites. Even in Sky Suites, the concierges will escort you off the ship at ports. This is particularly useful at tender port stops. 

Oh wow, I didn't know about being escorted off at ports. That's interesting, and good to know, as you say, for tender ports.  Thank you.

I'm definitely intrigued by all the positive comments I'm seeing about MSC YC.

1 hour ago, George C said:

On the higher suites (royal or above) you are escorted, last week we were escorted from outside the ship to our suite .

I was aware of this but I was confused about the "cutting lines" comment.

4 hours ago, FamilyAtSea.travel said:

For a moment, I thought he was telling us something entirely different.

I was confused, which is why I asked. 🙂

17 hours ago, nijh said:

On our last cruise it was 7.30!  Personally feel like this is a ‘thanks, now get off’ touch.  I remember when it used to be 8.30 and leisurely, but onboarding guests didn’t get their cabins until around 3pm.  Now  you can get them at 1.30 or before, but the debarkation morning is an early start and a miserable end to the holiday.

 

Wish they’d revert.

It's a catch 22 isn't it.  On embarkation day, I want to get on the ship as early as possible.  On disembarkation day, I want to get off as late as possible.  😁

9 hours ago, wrk2cruise said:

 

This is why I don't understand why people get them.   I just  book something with a refundable deposit as far in the future as possible.  Then when I decide I have my TA move it to the new sailing and at that time decided if I want to keep it refundable but in most cases change to non-refundable as I only have $100/pp at risk.

 

What would happen in this scenario when you change the sail date, change to NRD, and change your stateroom to the  Retreat on the new sailing ?  Are you required now to pay the deposit difference since retreat deposits are now higher?

1 hour ago, RichYak said:

I’ve had escorts in the Retreat.

Could you elaborate on this with respect to Celebrity?  Do you mean when you are boarding the ship, you are escorted onboard?  Or are there other ocassions?  

3 minutes ago, DaKahuna said:

On 3/15/2024 at 4:35 PM, Shadow9612 said:

Do you know of any of the tables are in the non-smoking section?

 

 The table games where in the middle but mostly toward the non-smoking side. 

 

On 3/15/2024 at 4:35 PM, Shadow9612 said:

 

I'd be curious to know if people thought MSC no smoking section of Casino was less noticeable than Princess.  

 

 

 I have never sailed on Princess so I cannot comment to the difference.  I will say that I played mostly the 'bubble' roulette game and it was on the same side as the smoking section but it was not that bad in my opinion

That's great to hear thank you. 

I love Celebrity, but if I could find an alternative that has a non-smoking casino, I would consider trying it, just due to the exceptionally high prices now on Celebrity.  

Although there is quite a bit of negativity on the boards about X, I still do think the onboard experience is phenomenal -  just very pricy.

8 hours ago, wrk2cruise said:

So in my opinion a better response from Celebrity would be to provide some of the PH amenities for the OP in their CS, like unlimited specialty dining, laundry etc.  Maybe if the onboard staff is aware of what happened there might be some accommodation

I feel for the OP and think Celebrity should have handled this better. 

This is a wonderful idea from @wrk2cruise.

2 minutes ago, CruisematicVA said:

The non-smoking casino on the Meraviglia was far enough away that there wasn't any smell of smoke, but there weren't any table games unfortunately.

Thank you 🙂

19 minutes ago, DaKahuna said:

 

 I am with you there. 

 

 On MSC Divina smoking was permitted on about half of the port side of the ship in the casino.  It was not permitted on the starboard side but you could still smell it when you first entered.  After a while it was no noticeable to us so I guess we just got use to it.  

Do you know of any of the tables are in the non-smoking section?

I was on a Princess cruise once where there was a 'no smoking' section of slot machines in the casino, but it was still very noticeable to me ... I couldn't stay very long and sadly I couldn't play Roulette 😧.

I'd be curious to know if people thought MSC no smoking section of Casino was less noticeable than Princess.